


Decay

by RadioCybertron



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Psychological Torture, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 06:04:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6458794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadioCybertron/pseuds/RadioCybertron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A cause is only as strong as the conviction that the weakest member carries.  Spoilers for MTMTE Issue 51 if you haven't read it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Decay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MlleMusketeer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MlleMusketeer/gifts).



_My heart has broke._   
_My chest has cracked._   
_But your words still burn._   
_Where the truth still lacks._

_——–_

It was supposed to be a _triumph_. 

A culmination of a life’s work, of changing the status quo and of rebellion and retribution. Of changing the very _fabric_ of Cybertronian culture. He had the first edition- printed on frames and framed on his walls. An example of his dedication to the Cause.

His _devotion_ to _change_. 

So why does he cringe at the screams?

The traitor is strong, his frame built to withstand torture and torment: a living testimony to strength and resilience. Underneath that heavy war-armor is an equally heavy protoform, used to abuse and ill-treatment. Removing it had been a delight, though cataloging had been a chore.   
  
Reducing him to spark-bare and strut-base had been a crowning achievement. There were places they had to cut and saw through, connectors wielded into lines, into joints. They had rendered him base-metal and malleable, like his words had once rendered them. Stripped of all prior connotations, of all previous connections- wires and connections open.

Ready to receive. 

Kaon had stepped forward first, and in his touch- the electrical charge of promises long broken. The traitor’s frame had jumped and spasmed in his grasp like a malfunctioning drone. He had whispered words into the glitching audial, feeling the field shrink and contract to protect what was left. 

Still, there was no sound. No apology. 

The traitor had not spoken since his initial surrender except once, and to those lies and words of slander, he did not listen. He had been betrayed twice, he would not be betrayed again. Gratuitous violence, senseless slaughter and mindless killing had never been his wont. 

He was no mere mindless, murdering machine. 

He is  _Tarn_. 

They brought him to the brink, to the edge and then back. Finesse, delicacy- coupled with wringing, writhing pain and agony. They danced him to the event horizon, and reeled him in. They, above all others, knew how to make the others dance to their songs. 

The Traitor was no different, his words a dying whisper in the fading static background of care and causality. They meant nothing, so they heard nothing. Until the Traitor spoke the name of a ghost, of a specter long dead in a past that ceased to exist outside of Messatine. Outside of the Decepticons. Outside of Towards Peace. 

_Terminus._

_I’m sorry._

It had frayed the last ounce of something in his processor, like a binding that had been holding back a monstrous shadow in the back of his consciousness. The traitor had stopped speaking, only because he started screaming as the _voice_ had laid into his processor, into his spark. It arched and lowered with the voltage that twisted around like ropes of pure light. It was a sound he’d heard before, a long time ago.

And one he’d never thought he’d hear again.

He had screamed out a single word to the agonized mechanism, a dying wretched tone that had roughed out a single 

**“STOP!”**

And he did. 

And he stopped everything else too. 

The traitor stopped screaming, and then he stopped moving, thinking, seeing, breathing and living. A single spark snuffed out in a single word. Limp in chains that bound and wound, and held. Helm rolled back and painted in the dried promises of pain and forgiveness, a tableau of torture.

A cause abandoned, a martyr forgotten.

And Tarn felt himself crack, shift and widen. All he had wanted was for the screaming to stop, but all he had learned was that the it had never paused. It continued, deafening his audials and ringing his helm. He had stopped the traitor from screaming.

But he was unable to stop himself. 

In the darkness, the traitor’s plating- blackened by soot and carbon, took on the same color as scheme he bore so proudly. And between the splashes of energon, and the mangling of features- he couldn’t tell if the traitors features were Megatron’s, or his own. 

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is love.


End file.
